Is there any research to back up what this story says about content length?

[Nathan Blows]

I recently came across this piece about why companies get web design wrong:  http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52903

I was interested (and annoyed) by the assertion that "organisations create concise content that gets the message across in 500 characters (not words) for online and 250 characters for mobile Web sites."

I've heard similar things before, like "page content should be around 400 - 500 words."

I am familiar with the aspects of cognition, attention and memory related to content, and agree that it's better to keep things shorter rather than bombarding users with a wall of text. 

However, I also do believe that you  need to provide the user with enough information to meet his or her needs, and sometimes that can't be done in 500 characters.

Is there any research that supports the 500 character guideline? It seems fairly arbitrary to me.

I've been looking about and can't really find anything.

[Cliff Tyllick]

Nathan, count me among the skeptics.

I doubt that people who download the ebook format of the latest spy thriller or book for the workplace will be disappointed if it runs more than 500 words.

"It depends" comes to mind.

Cliff Tyllick

---

From: Nathan Blows <natha...@gmail.com>
To: content...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 2:42 AM
Subject: Is there any research to back up what this story says about content length?

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[Melanie Seibert]

That's interesting, I never heard that assertion before.

In fact, Marketing Experiments did some research and, in their study, long copy outperformed short copy (in a selling scenario of course). The conventional wisdom among marketing copywriters seems to be that long copy sells better. 

http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conversion/long-copy-short-copy.html

Of course, there are tons of caveats: the copy must be well written, formatted for readability, useful, etc. And this doesn't account for UI text and documentation, which I'd argue call for more brevity.

But I agree with Cliff—it depends!

Melanie

[Rudy Duke]

I like to use this analogy to address the need for brevity in web
copy: "No one wants to grab a bowl of pop-corn, a warm blanket, light
the fireplace, perhaps the family pet and curl up with a good web
site."

It does indeed "depend" on the circumstances; but more often than not
brevity (perhaps not as strict as 500 characters) is better. I am
working on a public service portal project right now. Citizens come to
the portal to be served in some way. This is an instance where brevity
is a must.

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[Rahel Anne Bailie]

I'd say that this guideline oversimplifies. What we know from the usabilty field is that  people "skim, skip, and scan" until they get to their destination page, and then they zre willing to read quite a long page. There are a few basic types of pages. One is wayfinding. The other is substantive. Think of a consumer buying a laptop. They might end up on a page about computers, and they scan for laptops. They click on the first link they see that will take them to a laptop sectio. They find a link to the tpe of laptop they want and click, and so on. Once they get to the page about, say, specifications, then they will stay on the page to read about the features they want.

So the first pages are minimal, just enough to get people to where they want to go - in some recent testing, 250 words was "too much reading" -  and the destination page has the substance, which could easily be 500 wrds.

--

[Rudy Duke]

I believe this nails it!

--
Regards,

Rudy Duke
rudy...@gmail.com

[Jill Stuart]

Looking over the www.marketingexperiments.com brief below, I was frustrated that there was no definition of 'long copy' and 'short copy', nor a context about the purpose of the content. 'It depends' indeed. Some complex, abstract products and services--e.g., insurance (and please don't ask why that example comes to mind) present an enormous challenge for content creation: useful information is not always reducible to short copy. This is not to say that it's impossible to be concise, or to devise elegant ways of organizing and presenting the information to guide users. Still, ultimately it has to meet the user's informational needs.

[Cliff Tyllick]

Especially if the destination they're seeking is, say, a review of all available laptops under $1500. In that case, 500 words might not be nearly enough.

But on some pages en route, or even pages traveled to after that destination, 50 words might be too much, for precisely the reasons you note.

Cliff

---

From: Rahel Anne Bailie <rahel....@gmail.com>
To: content...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 9:31 AM
Subject: Re: Is there any research to back up what this story says about content length?

[Robert Rose]

As usual I find myself in complete agreement with Rahel and the rest of the opinions.  However, I would caution us to remember that the original research in question here was specifically for “mobile sites” and we seem to have expanded a bit.   While I think the “oversimplification” idea does still play (I often “curl up” with my *mobile* iPad and read long form content) – my sense is here that the author of the piece was trying to relay the importance of brevity on websites optimized for smartphones (an admitted assumption on my part).

 

Actually my favorite piece of that article is actually where they prescribe: “eye catching images” and “strong headlines and well-crafted copy” in order to get the attention of the user.  Such sage advice <eye roll>.  It’s not unlike the Director imploring his actors: “Just act better!”

 

The original article is really just too short (probably purposely to support the linkbait-ish) headline to explore all the “it depends” scenarios.  That irony is also pretty tasty on a Monday morning.

 

Cheers all…

 

~rr

 

Robert Rose

Chief Troublemaker

Big Blue Moose
www.bigbluemoose.net

www.mythicmarketer.com

 

It’s All Possible!

 

 

     

 

From: content...@googlegroups.com [mailto:content...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Rahel Anne Bailie
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 7:31 AM
To: content...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Is there any research to back up what this story says about content length?

 

I'd say that this guideline oversimplifies. What we know from the usabilty field is that  people "skim, skip, and scan" until they get to their destination page, and then they zre willing to read quite a long page. There are a few basic types of pages. One is wayfinding. The other is substantive. Think of a consumer buying a laptop. They might end up on a page about computers, and they scan for laptops. They click on the first link they see that will take them to a laptop sectio. They find a link to the tpe of laptop they want and click, and so on. Once they get to the page about, say, specifications, then they will stay on the page to read about the features they want.

[Cliff Tyllick]

Mobile-only. Hmmm.

My first thought is that even 250 words might be too long for a page or article intended for smart phones only.

It... oh, well; I've already said that. :-)

Cliff

---

From: Robert Rose <rob...@bigbluemoose.net>
To: content...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 10:54 AM
Subject: RE: Is there any research to back up what this story says about content length?

[Rahel Anne Bailie]

The concept of "progressive disclosure" comes to mind. When I view my site on a mobile phone, I get a list of article titles. If I want more, I can click and get more. That's a good mobile experience *for me*. There could be thousands of words there, but I'm not flooded with them. I will look at only the subset that I am comfortable digesting as I click through.

---

Rahel Anne Bailie (@rahelab)
Content Strategist / Content Management / Information Architecture
Intentional Design Inc. www.intentionaldesign.ca
Content strategies for business impact
http://about.me/rahel.bailie 

[Milan Davidović]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 3:42 AM, Nathan Blows <natha...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there any research that supports the 500 character guideline? It seems

> fairly arbitrary to me.The article cited in the original post says:

"Letowt-Vorbek says many South African Web sites are remembered for
the wrong reasons and she has noted five common flaws, gathered from
research carried out in conjunction with UXalliance, a global user
research and user experience organisation."

So, at least to start with, I'd put the question to UXAlliance, or at
least look for findings with their name attached.

--
Milan Davidović
http://twitter.com/altmilan
http://altmilan.blogspot.com
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/milandavidovic

[Tom Johnson]

I wrote a post about content length and word count last year that's relevant to this discussion:  http://idratherbewriting.com/2011/01/25/making-help-content-enjoyable-to-read-impossible-quest-or-achievable-reality/  

Some people have found that the most popular blog posts are about 1,600 words long.

Tom

---------------------
blog: idratherbewriting.com
twitter: tomjohnson

[Dane Troup]

I agree... This sums up the online gatherer - "skim, skip, scan" is great!

I think "popular" content/blog posts can run long but they are usually destinations, not entry points ( unless referred).

I'm struggling with content right now on a very technical content site.

Sent from my iPhone

[ashirrr]

I'm not saying anything new here, but the amount of text has to be commensurate with the specific action or information need required at the stage in the user's process. I think we can all agree that when in doubt, creating useful, scannable text that is structured for both users and crawlers is the best bet (and preferably in that order, no?)

With all of that said, the only thing I could dig up in terms of "less text" was from early articles by Jakob Nielsen from his 2008 article "How Little Do Users Read?" The findings of Nielsen/Norman Group's research assert that users scan (as we all know), and that they spend about 20% of their time reading. A crude summary: basically users are less likely to read a longer article with a higher word count. In fact, Nielsen concludes his article with:

 "If you target a broader audience or have sales cycles that are shorter than 5 years, you'd be wise to put your word count on a strict diet."  

The funny part is that the article, by Nielsen's own admission, is in excess of what seems to be the optimal length and he asserts that this is because he has a select, elite groups of readers. I think that fact itself is telling: while the recommendation to keep content short (regardless of device) is useful, it can't be applied without a good understanding of the user and the context. Clearly, as the rest of this thread has articulated, the issue of length is not as important as the nature of the information, the specific audience and the action required. 

I view Nielsen's article as useful to some degree but largely on the cusp of being too simplified and more in line with the "everyone must write to an inverted pyramid style." While this is a great, powerful and utilitarian structure for textual content I don't see it as a hard and fast rule for every single project I've worked on. It's a starting place but in many cases the content strategy work I end up doing yields some hybrid of this structure blended with the needs of the specific audience or business. 

I treat words counts in the same way.

best,

Ashir Badami

[Greg Roth | @PercyGroupComm]

Not research, but came across this blog post on "5 Tips for Mobile
Impact"
http://www.bluetrainmobile.com/blog/5-tips-for-mobile-copywriting-twice-the-impact-112-the-space/

"The average desktop website page contains 250-400 words of content.
As a general rule, we recommend that you keep word count down to
75-110 words per page on your mobile site. Only the first 80-90 words
will be visible on the screen, even fewer if you’re including images
or call-to-action buttons."

Also working on a post of my own based on the discussion, as more
questions are raised than answered.

Greg
http://percy-group.com
@PercyGroupComm

On Mar 26, 6:57 pm, ashirrr <ashirbad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not saying anything new here, but the amount of text has to be
> commensurate with the specific action or information need required at the
> stage in the user's process. I think we can all agree that when in doubt,
> creating useful, scannable text that is structured for both users and
> crawlers is the best bet (and preferably in that order, no?)
>
> With all of that said, the only thing I could dig up in terms of "less
> text" was from early articles by Jakob Nielsen from his 2008 article "How

> Little Do Users Read?"<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/percent-text-read.html> The

> >http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5...

>
> > I was interested (and annoyed) by the assertion that "organisations create
> > concise content that gets the message across in 500 characters (not words)
> > for online and 250 characters for mobile Web sites."
>
> > I've heard similar things before, like "page content should be around 400
> > - 500 words."
>
> > I am familiar with the aspects of cognition, attention and memory related
> > to content, and agree that it's better to keep things shorter rather than
> > bombarding users with a wall of text.
>
> > However, I also do believe that you  need to provide the user with enough
> > information to meet his or her needs, and sometimes that can't be done in
> > 500 characters.
>
> > Is there any research that supports the 500 character guideline? It seems
> > fairly arbitrary to me.
>
> > I've been looking about and can't really find anything.
>
> On Monday, March 26, 2012 12:42:20 AM UTC-7, NathanBlows wrote:
>
> > I recently came across this piece about why companies get web design
> > wrong:

> >http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5...

[Marcia Johnston]

Nathan,

I waded into the research recently. I side with your many responders
who say, basically, "it depends." Quantitative guidelines are out
there, and lots of people advocate for "short for mobile," but aiming
for "short" is shortsighted ... and, in fact, meaningless. I summed up
my findings and conclusions in a post called "Coming Soon to the Small
Screen" here:

http://marciarieferjohnston.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/coming-soon-to-the-small-screen-revisited

Great question!

Marcia
----
Marcia Riefer Johnston

[Eoin Kelly]

Hi Nathan,

I don't know of any research that supports it but I can guess at how it was derived.

1. You hear that that there is a hierarchy of messaging on your page i.e. primary message, secondary messages etc. You also hear that these levels are also referred to as the 1 second impression, 10 second impression, 2 minute impression (see Kristina Halvorson at AEA 2010 http://vimeo.com/36673761)

2. A quick trawl through wikipedia says that "The average American adult reads prose text at 250 to 300 words per minute" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_per_minute)

3. 2 mins x 250 words = 500 words per page. 

4. Boom. Fist pump the air.

This is how I arrived at 500 words anyway. Kristina Halvorson isn't implying that all pages should be at most two minutes and that's not how I interpreted it but I do use "500 words" as a guideline (not a rule) for clients because

1. It puts "brevity" up front as a writing goal for them.
2. I hope it makes writing content a little less scary for them - 500 words isn't a lot.
3. It emotionally prepares them a bit for the editing process - I rarely have clients that write too little.
4. Any page that runs longer than that should do so for a good reason - it should be the exception, not the rule and it should be discussed.

Thanks for your time

/Eoin/